The fight for LGBTQ rights in Delhi – in pictures

The fight for LGBTQ rights in Delhi – in pictures

Gay sex is still illegal in India, and same-sex marriage prohibited. Photographers Sunil Gupta and Charan Singh followed the LGBTQ activists who are standing up for their rights in Delhi

Main image:
Zahid and Ranjan are among the few openly gay couples in Delhi
Photograph: Sunil Gupta and Charan Singh

Fri 25 Nov 2016 02.00 EST
Last modified on Wed 20 Sep 2017 05.45 EDT

Photographers Sunil Gupta and Charan Singh delve into the secret lives of Delhi’s LGBTQ community. Same-sex relationships are still outlawed in the country after a 2009 decriminalisation ruling was overturned. A book of their photographs,
Delhi: Communities of Belonging, is published by the New Press. All photographs by Sunil Gupta and Charan Singh

Jatin is a member of the Dalit caste – the bottom rung of India’s social ladder, referred to as ‘untouchable’. He identifies as a
kothi, a term for an effeminate man, but was forced to get married, and lives with his wife and three children in his parents’ home

‘Even though people are more out today, there is that thing in the back of the mind saying this is still illegal in this country, and if they decide to crack down on it we are too exposed already, so we would be in a lot of trouble,’ says Ranjan

She lives part of the year in India, and the rest of the year with her American wife, Kath, in Virginia. ‘It matters to me that I’m in India. Sometimes it’s hard to be here … I feel like danger is stalking us in a much more different way,’ she says